Memorial Day

What does that mean to you when you read or hear 'Memorial Day'?

I was reading someone else's journal and they had devoted today's entry to quotes from famous people, photographs, and all manner of tribute to the fallen. Then as I was reading the comments, and all glowing comments as they should have been, one person finished with, "Happy Memorial Day". That just struck me. Not in a 'that was kind of a dumb fuckin' thing to say' way, but more of a 'do you really know what your saying' way. Like, 'Happy Soldier's Died Day!

I guess the spin on this is to celebrate the freedom we have because of their sacrifices, and that is entirely true, but I don't know, it just struck me reading the phrase, 'Happy Memorial Day'. I immediately thought of not so much who is this day for but who does it mean the most to. I thought those who lost someone, a friend, a relative, but I couldn't help but remember this photograph of soldiers burying the dead. That is when I thought it was really about those soldiers. The ones who were there in the battles and were spared as they saw their buddies die. The ones who would grow old and saw the last moments of those who wouldn't. They remember. War is a surreal situation and really can't be explained outside of experience. I just wanted to say, I remember you.

This week's rentals: Timeline, love actually, and Master and Commander

I had what I figure was a margin of success in picking out the DVD's that I did last week, so throwing caustion to the wind I gave the old DVD dartboard another try. Woe is I. This week was not that bad, but there was definite disappointment.
Since I had read the book I had always wanted to see Timeline, even though it tanked at the box office it had for me all the elements I like and expect in a Michael Crichton movie. Shallow characters and a fairly anal attention to technical detail. Not special effects mind you, but the majority of the movie is set in the 14th century, and it's about paying attention how good archer's are with bows and arrows because it was their their job. This as opposed to Star War's Imperial soldiers who couldn't hit a fuckin' thing no matter what. You can obviously flesh things out much more in a book and build the credibility and create that suspension of disbelief to by into the concept of time travel. However, the length of time you have to accomplish this in a movie is very small and you're relying on the actor's to help you buy into the concepts presented. As presented in the movie at the beginning, the six main characters were the six most gullible people on earth. Six academics bought the concept of time travel without any kind of evidence to back up the claims other than 'time travel anecdotes'. That they were going to time travel in the next few minutes back to medieval times to rescue another academic. And they were convinced to do this in under a minute. Huh? What the fuck, over? The two exceptions to the actors who for the most part acted as if they were thinking about why they took these parts. Noteworthy performances from Paul Walker (really jim dandy job Paul)and Neal McDonough (excellent work). Unfortunately, only when they spoke was the movie interesting. My vote is get the book. The hardcovers on the discount table at Barnes and Noble.
love actually was very entertaining. Eight interwoven stories decately balanced by excellent actors and dialogue. With the exception of the Hugh Grant storyline, they was all very probable stories.
Master and Commander has not been viewed as of this writing.

I know I'll get at least one letter about this post, ha.

I am bored out of my skull, mostly because I'm tired (a bad way to be bored), and yet I am compelled to write. Or will it be literary spew. I don't know. More importantly I don't care.
...and I'm thinking now, "oh, how quaintly negative we are, hmmm."
So now in addition to a police action against boredom, tiredness, and the ever ongoing effort to not look like a mouth breathing idiot, well...I gotta be positive.
Shit. oh, ouch, negative attitude dammit. Oh dammit, negative again. must regain self control. Gee willikers. whew! I'm safe.
I really want to get some comments here. Hmmm, how to accomplish that. Attack a beloved figure. Right. Y'know what? Harry Potter sucks.
Okay, don't get your knickers in a bunch. All's I'm saying is, well...I myself am not a big fantasy fan. I enjoyed the movies and look forward to the next one (due out soon). But I have tried to plow through the first book without success. Don't get me wrong. I well understand the impact the series has made on the world, most especially of course in getting children to read. I said it before about having worked in a bookstore that when adults would complain about the kids making a huge mess of the children's section of the store or the magazine section or the whatever section, my words became, 'Hey who cares as long as they're reading, right?' I'm for anything that will get them to read.
Sidenote here: If you're reading this right now and you have the opportunity to consume some alcohol, please do, and maybe you could throw in a little toast for me. I don't have any right now, but I think a good stiff belt would adjust my attitude immensely. But...I digress.
With my wife, daughter, and niece, we tried very hard on Saturday night to see Shrek 2. The first evening showings were spaced 15 minutes apart in three of the 120+ movieplex, and by the time we got to the front of the ticket line the only thing left was front row of the third showing. So we went to Mean Girls instead. Excellent movie! Not the usual teen fare at all. Very smart and funny, on a level, dare I say, with Fast Times at Ridgemont High.
It was great to see SNL people doing smart comedy too. Which is not to take away from other works done by other SNL alums but, it just seems that when they graduate from SNL the jump seems to be into screwball comedy, which is not always the best way to go. Highly recommend Mean Girls though, Lindsay Lohan did an outstanding job.
Well as long as I'm on this jag...Rented a few movies this past weekend, Calendar Girls (very funny), Big Fish, and Kill Bill. I had wanted to see Big Fish for a long time because I like Tim Burton and Albert Finney. Then I thought that it faded from the movie theatres kinda fast, so then I thought, okay maybe I was wrong. Pleasant, no wait, it was a big surprise. It was amazing. Sweety posed the question the other day, "What do you do to relax?" Well, this is it! Get lost in great movies. Big Fish was great. I was just spirited away and totally wrapped in the story. All the actors did a super job. Kudos to Danny Devito in his cameo role, and I had never seen Helen Bonham Carter before in any thing. She too was amazing. As I said, I also rented Kill Bill if for nothing else I think Quentin Tarantino is one of the best dialogue writers in movie history. Up there with David Mamet. It lived up to my expectations. Tarantino is a fanatic for detail and this movie is homage to the martial arts movies of the seventies. As I was watching a scene where Uma Thurman is fighting the 'Crazy 88', I was thinking that I was getting that same rush of adrenalin heretofore not felt since watching Bruce Lee in Enter The Dragon, the definitive martial arts movie, many years ago. Once again good job Quentin.
Ah this was helpful and I don't feel as bored anymore. Thanks everyone.

What if he is a girl?

Hey, why am I talkin' on like this?
My kid ain't even been born, yet!
I can see him when he's seventeen or so,
And startin' to go with a girl
I can give him lots of pointers, very sound
On the way to get 'round any girl
I can tell him ...
Wait a minute!
Could it be?
What the hell!
What if he is a girl?

- Soliloquy, from the musical Carousel

I have two kids. A boy and a girl. They’re both teenagers. I mention these things as a segue to today’s topic which is “one aspect of raising a daughter in today’s world”. I’m not actually going to write about either of the kids, but I want to talk about one thing that I’m doing to help my girl grow up in a man’s world. I don’t think of it that way, ‘a man’s world’, but I’m not an idiot, of course men are better off than women. The point is to pass along the idea that you don’t think about it, then through passive aggression you can change the way of thinking eventually.
At the beginning of the Viet Nam war women war correspondents also started appearing for the first time. In a survey of five of them, which was pretty much all of them, they responded the same way to the question of whether their efforts helped the cause of women’s equal rights since they had each taken on what was traditionally a man’s job, which was also dangerous, obviously because it was a war zone. They said that they didn’t think about it really, it was that this was the job they really wanted to do. You may think they didn’t make that much of an impact, but here I’m writing about their attitudes and remarks some forty years later.
As you get into movies and television, there are remarkably few role models which is so sad, but the ones that are there are terrific. You may think some of my choices odd, but remember I’m looking for role models not necessarily quality cinema. ‘Working Girl’ (Melanie Griffith + Sigourney Weaver) is outstanding. ‘Alien’ (Sigourney Weaver, again!) I particularly like this for the fact that there is never any moment in the movie when the ship’s crew treats her like a woman as opposed to someone in charge, and her authority is never questioned. ‘Poltergeist’ (Jobeth Williams) smart, funny, realistic. A point of clarification. I’m not talking about strong personalities, like Roseanne, or Oprah, but women who, and I had to use the phrase but it fits, ‘just do it’ (so sayeth Nike). They don’t draw attention to themselves but just do whatever they are inclined to do, without thinking of it in terms of gender. That is what I want for my daughter, to think outside the box and do whatever she wants. On the lower end but I think just as good, you have Tia Carrere in ‘Relic Hunter’, excellent role model. For awhile Xena was right up there too, then she started getting goofy and I thought, no, this isn’t good.
I suppose if I want to move this along I should just write one myself.

Experimenting with images

This is my home town. I don't live there now, but I get back as often as I can.

More Thievery

Yes, I had to take the movie thing from Zoot, because I took the quiz on her site and I got Aladdin (which is most cool).

New toy!

On the most recent trip around the internet a stop at Sweety's blog revealed the blogpoll thing to the left. A most cool site where you can create your own. Which I did! Thank you Sweety!

Stephen King grew up near me

True. At least part of his childhood was in Stratford, CT, one town over from where I lived. In the dedication of one of his books he thanked his brother David for holding his hand while crossing Main Street in Stratford.
At the time that I read Carrie I was not much of a reader and it was a fluke that I just happened to pick that paperback. I was hooked on King immediately and the Stratford connection was actually another draw for me to read his books initially, because I felt like I knew the places he was writing about, and actually I did.
Salem’s Lot has been running recently on TV and although I’m not a fan of vampire stories (Did see Raul Julia in Dracula on Broadway, which was very cool) I really thought it was done well.
The first time I saw it was on tape and I was at a friend’s house. I don’t remember the exact point at which this happened, probably halfway through, a tension filled moment nonetheless, a very small earthquake/tremor hit. What was scary as a movie situation was now fucked up scary. Obviously as a reasonable adult I know there would be no direct correlation between some video taped tv movie and a seismic event because if it did I would be chucklehead at a minimum but, on the other hand, it was fucked up scary. Timing is everything. We were drinking too. I don’t think I mentioned that earlier. But I digress.
Again, it has been running on tv recently and even looking at it now it doesn’t seem hokey. King movies don’t always play well for various reasons, which is sad because the characters that he writes are so real. Christine was so spooky because I knew those guys; they were my friends in high school.
For me:
My favorite book: Cujo
The book that I think is the best written: The Stand (epics really deserve some kinda nod)
Best movie version: Firestarter
The one everyone else thinks is the best movie version: The Stand (and rightfully so, the cast was excellent)
I’m gonna have to put the Dead Zone (another favorite) on tonight. Love that nutty Walken, “THE ICE WILL BREAK!”.
I love it.

What are you doing?

Right now, this second, it's Sunday night EST. I'm at work (so this must be quick!) I thought I'd reflect on the fact that although the old social life tends to suck, I really do have an optimum work schedule. Sunday thru Thursday - evenings. So that leaves my days free, as well as making Thursday my Friday. And I work on Sunday. So what? It's Sunday. Who does anything of importance on Sunday anyway. Any family functions usually happen during the day (your get-together family dinners, etc.). So heck, might as well make money. Come Monday morning my week is already underway, which makes Tuesday - Hump Day! Granted, independant wealth is my personal goal, but for now, this schedule will do.